


Opposites

by paceisthetrick



Series: Drabbles for Shells [13]
Category: No Night is Too Long (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paceisthetrick/pseuds/paceisthetrick





	Opposites

Ivo delighted in lecturing me, _instructing_ me, telling me that I was “inscientious”. My abysmal ignorance pained him. No one with as little scientific education as I should ever have been admitted to university. What were they teaching children in schools these days?   
  
I might as well have been standing beside my Aunt Clarissa.   
  
I tuned him out when he went on like that – doling out entirely too much information. I had no interest in the formation of glaciers millions of years ago. I didn’t even try to explain that there was a poetic beauty to the natural world that did not require any explanation, that I did not need to understand something to admire it. They were breath-taking and brilliant in the sunlight and that was enough for me. It wasn't enough for Ivo who proceeded to tell me the temperature distribution in ice sheets, knowing full well I had never taken physics.  
  
Had I been a brilliant poet or writer, I could have been his match, but the reality was he was far more poetic than I and much better read in my own field. He never looked blank when we discussed my area of expertise. He knew all the current literary criticism of contemporary and classic literature. He could drop the names of books and authors in a way that made me writhe in shame. He was even well-versed in the theatrical arts, killing whatever joy I might have discovered there. I was actually embarrassed for him to read anything I wrote. I knew that he would spent a good hour picking it apart, telling me honestly what was wrong with it -- as he would any other student, as any other professor of mine might.  
  
I didn't want that level of honesty with my lover. I wanted him to be in love with me, to admire me as much as I admired him. I was sick of being the underling, the protege, the woman in the relationship. I was sick of his stories and his accomplishments and his knowledge and his life. I wanted my own life. When I was unfaithful to him, it was my attempt to find myself – to escape his overbearing superiority.   
  
I honestly had no idea why he even loved me. Or thought he did. It had to be sex but he could have had that just as easily in the clubs or toilets as he once did. He hardly needed to wear an albatross around his neck to get his dick sucked. I didn't cook for him or clean his house like a wife. I wasn't a companion -- we couldn't go out in public anywhere as a couple. Most nights he spent reading or writing, barely interacting with me at all. After the first few disastrous attempts, he no longer took me with him to conferences; I would sit there bored out of my mind while a group of scientists talked about things I had never heard of and didn’t want to hear of.   
  
I knew why I loved him. What was not to love? He was clever and animated and passionate and wildly exciting to be with. I never knew what he might do – he had so many interests and was constantly on the move in search of more. He could be as savage as the prehistoric monsters he studied, as gentle as the waves lapping the shore, as unexpected as an avalanche.   
  
Rereading Ivo’s letters now, I have to laugh. “Did it never occur to you, idiot,” and I can hear the tone of his voice, “that I love you simply because you are so very different to me?”


End file.
